It's interesting that PG will no longer be reviewing applications. I wonder who the 10 people he referenced who do review applications are.
http://ycombinator.com/people.html
Is Andrew Mason still involved? He's not on the list.
Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
41–50 of 69 posts
Re: Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
#42"PAWWWWWL, I gotta startup that corrects misspelled 'Role Tide' Tattoos. WATCHU THINK??"
Re: Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
#43The article mentions that he was a lightning rod and whatnot as the face of YC. I can't help but wonder whether he took a step back to really evaluate what he was doing with his time after all those blogs ran with the "Paul Graham is a sexist piece of shit blah blah blah" backlash stories a couple months ago.
No, Sam and I had already agreed by then that he'd take over. We just hadn't announced it yet. I do remember thinking though that this was going to be one of the things I missed least.
Ha! One wonders what Sam's thoughts were...
Re: Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to disagree with the "can easily tell within ten minutes if someone cannot pass muster" part. Interviewing is hard. We tend to make such snap judgments but those judgments reflect our own biases. I have come to believe over the years that interviewing measures interviewing skills. Test scores measure test taking skills. Success on the job requires success-on-the-job (to coin a phrase) skills. All those things…
Aren't "interviewing skills" essential to founders? Isn't a YC interview basically a chance to pitch your company and answer probing questions about your plan? Seems like a pretty fair qualification to me...
Only if fundraising is your endgame, which admittedly it is for a lot of wantrepreneurs.
Re: Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
#45Re: Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
#46Err, Sam Altman is the only beta tester of a YC-company trying to develop a better email client? Anyone got any more details on this? Is this just an inside joke that I don't get? (Yes I remember the build-better-email-client thing, but actually trying, and using one beta-tester?) To be honest I no longer think an email client is the problem. Its the lack of contact book, integration with all my devices and just gene…
What's so strange about that? Personally I think it's a brilliant strategy. It's the logical conclusion of having few users love you, and frankly I can't think of anyone better than Sam Altman to beta test a email app. Once they got him satisfied and hooked, they can easily go for the other big fish in the SF startup scene. I'm sure they appreciate your two sentence dismissal of something you've never seen and haven'…
I am not dismissing their new email client - I am dismissing the idea that a new successful email client is about email. I have four mail clients and god knows how many messaging clients and VoIP in regular use and none of them manage to do the things I need that are related to messaging other human beings - synchronising address books, synchronising who I talked to about what and when, booking appointments between two people without several emails of a phone call, and generally reminding me what I have forgotten .
I struggle to imagine that there is a single email client that will solve this - this is an integration problem - multiple devices, multiple slices of my life.
Executives pay good money, very good money, for PAs to solve these problems. And I get more and more frustrated by the siloes of data (Skype, iPhones call log) that actively make it harder for me to get metadata about what I am doing each day.
so an email client, by my definition of what a single client is, no, does not seem a good idea. but maybe a cross platform synchronising and intelligent solution, that might be worth getting excited about
so that's why I asked if anyone knew anymore. Not a dismissal of their app, a request for more info. And then a strawman of the idea of building a better email client.
I think building a better mousetrap is an outdated when a jungle is waiting out there.
Re: Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
#47> Principally, he said, just because someone is intelligent, doesn’t mean they can actually run a business and go out and execute. > “You can be surprisingly stupid if you’re sufficiently determined,” he concluded. Oh that's nice. Reminds me of the Simpsons episode when some kid accepts homecoming king with "Thank you for not choosing the popular jock and electing me, your intellectual superior, as homecoming king".
Smart engineer/entrepreneurs #1 mistake is thinking that because they are competent in their field(or got good grates at an elite school) that somehow magically translates to competence in business and entrepreneurship. I know and have met quite a few people that are grinding away at or have made products which have serious business challenges that they underestimate or are blind to and predictably fail to overcome.…
You can say the same about artisans who have spent their lives perfecting their craft but don't know how to get the word out about their creations. So many labor in obscurity and their pieces are stunning.
Re: Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
#48>You can be surprisingly stupid if you’re sufficiently determined
I think one reason we're wrestling with this smart/stupid/success/fail subject is that these words paint with broad brushes. It's not just being smart or stupid, it's what you're smart or stupid about.
For example, I knew an uneducated couple who opened a small clothing store. At first, they naively sold merchandise for less than they paid for it. They calculated the markup on belts by adding $4, then adding $3. When I suggested just adding $7, they got angry and said no, you HAD to add $4 first, or it wouldn't work. I would have been fired for pressing the issue.
Pretty stupid, eh? Maybe. But they were smart, too, about other things. What other things? Some people get MBAs at Harvard and still can't figure it out.
I watched that couple expand into a small chain of clothing stores with an 8-figure annual cash flow, and retire as millionaires.
One can only wonder how long they would have lasted in a YC pitch session. My grandmother used to say, "we're all stupid, we're just stupid about different things." The same could be said of "smart," and I believe success reflects a correctness in this rather delicate dichotomy.
Re: Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
#49>You can be surprisingly stupid if you’re sufficiently determined I think one reason we're wrestling with this smart/stupid/success/fail subject is that these words paint with broad brushes. It's not just being smart or stupid, it's what you're smart or stupid about. For example, I knew an uneducated couple who opened a small clothing store. At first, they naively sold merchandise for less than they paid for it. They…
Family story: Supposedly, some uncle or some such of mine owned land and at some point some large company wanted to buy the mineral rights. They offered him like $9/acre or whatever and he said "Make it $10 and you have a deal." His reason for wanting $10 was to simplify the math: X acres times 10 = just add a zero to the number of acres.
He wasn't comfortable with math, but supposedly he made quite good money.
Re: Paul Graham Shares Lessons Learned From 630+ YC Startups
#50>You can be surprisingly stupid if you’re sufficiently determined I think one reason we're wrestling with this smart/stupid/success/fail subject is that these words paint with broad brushes. It's not just being smart or stupid, it's what you're smart or stupid about. For example, I knew an uneducated couple who opened a small clothing store. At first, they naively sold merchandise for less than they paid for it. They…
I don't quite understand your markup anecdote. Did time pass between the $4 and $3 markups?